Thousands of Newspaper Clippings to Sort!

Continuing on with our large genealogy research collection, we are now on Stage 3. We've triaged all the boxes into various topics as mentioned in my last blog post.

Yesterday we had a good look at the newspaper clippings. It's overwhelming. The image on the left shows some, but not all of the binders and boxes of clippings! There is another large plastic tub full of loose clippings.

Many are in binders but a very large number are loose and in plastic sleeves in boxes.

I pulled out one of the binders and took a photo to illustrate how they were originally organized . It is obvious by looking through the binders that she organized the clippings by surname, then glued the clippings to blank paper, attempting to keep family groups together. This is a wonderful resource of births, marriages, deaths, obituaries, graduations and so on. However there are hundreds, if not thousands, of loose clippings that are not sorted so we will have to think about how best to treat those.

I have not gotten a good sense of the time span for the clippings as we aren't taking the time right now to delve into each collection. For now we are focusing on sorting and finding space in our home to house all the books and binders so we can begin a more serious in-depth assessment and inventory.

The newer clippings may be available online so we have to decide if it is worth house space to devote to them. I did note some clippings from the early 1900s and late 1800s, and those may be worth preserving. We have some tough decisions ahead.

 

We found room in the basement for the binders of newspaper clippings which were labelled A through to Z , although we are missing some of the alphabet! I suspect those are some of the loose clippings as we know that the Heritage Assocation began removing clippings from the binders in order to inventory them before realizing the collection was too large for them to handle. 

We have saved binders to replace the missing letters and hopefully in the future we will be able to at least organize the loose clippings to insert in binders. But we won't use glue! 

Of course the question still remains - what do we do with the clippings once organized? We're mulling on that question.

Receiving a Large Collection of Genealogy Documents!

Genealogy Boxes Arrive

A few months back  Olive Tree Genealogy was offered some newspaper clippings from a donation a historical society had received. I was very excited to be asked and of course I agreed. A very large package soon arrived by mail consisting of hundreds of loose obituaries from newspapers.

As I was planning on how best to organize and inventory the clippings, another surprise came my way. I was told there were about a dozen large filing boxes full of miscellaneous genealogy items from the same donated materials.

This was too good an opportunity to save important historical records to pass up even though the thought of dealing with so many boxes was somewhat overwhelming.

My husband kindly offered to drive to the Society, some 3 hours distance from our home, to pick up the boxes. To my astonishment, there were over 15 large boxes full of genealogy binders, genealogy books, loose newspaper clippings, and more.  Here they are arriving at our home.

What To Do with So Many Boxes?

My husband and I are planners. We like to be organized. So we took a breath and decided we needed to sort the collection. First we needed a place to put the boxes where they would not be in the way but would be accessible. Then we could slowly and methodically "triage" the contents into organized groups of items.

Step One - Move & Triage!

So we moved to step one - moving the incoming boxes into our living room. Some had gotten wet in the journey in the rain to our home so removing the contents from wet boxes was our first priority.

My dogs helping me start the process

We took a break at this point but we plan to triage the contents ASAP. We saw at a glance that there are various items - hardcover genealogy books, genealogy booklets, binders of newspaper clippings, binders of research notes, family genealogies, and more. This next step will be a fun sort to organize into groups that we can either move to our basement until we have time to work on the contents, or keep in my office for starting an inventory.

The Journey Begins

Please follow along on our journey to inventory and preserve these documents. We aren't archivists but we plan to do our best. We also hope to figure out a way to make the documents accessible to genealogists and historians. If you have ideas or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments on this blog post.

Finding Irish Immigrant Girls

Thanks to Sassy Jane Genealogy, I found out about a very nice database. The Watson House Digital Archives has information on Irish immigrant girls who arrived in New York.

The collection includes fully searchable records of the Irish Mission at Watson House 1883-1954. 

Another way to find out more about Irish immigrant girls in New York is to consult Olive Tree Genealogy's New York Almshouse records. In particular the following databases may be of interest:

New York Almshouse Records 1782-1813. Records contain name of ancestor, date admitted, age, where from or born, complaint [illness], discharged, died, remarks. Start with New York Almshouse 1782-1813 Surnames "A" | Surnames B | Surnames C. Other surnames to follow



Almshouse Records New York 1819-1840

Almshouse Records New York City 1855-1858

WW 1 Photo Album Archive page 15

Continuing on with my WW1 Photo Album archive here is the 15th page in my mother's cousin Doris Simpson's album. There were only 2 photos on this page. 

Sadly they are not labelled so I only know they are both WW1 Canadian soldiers. The first is a WW1 soldier (Cavalry which was the same unit as Doris' father (my grandmother's brother)

WW1 Photo Album Page 7

Continuing on with my WW1 Photo Album archive here is the 7th page in Doris' album. There are only 3 photos on this page. One is my Grandfather Fuller in a garden. The second is my Grandmother Ruth (his wife) and the third is a family group but I do not know who they are.

 Grandma Ruth

 Grandpa Fuller

 I don't recognize any of these people. They were obviously important to Uncle Ern and Auntie Cordie but they may be her side of the family and that means I would not recognize them. I have some beautiful photos of Auntie Cordie's ancestors which I plan to put online in hopes other family members will spot them. Our family has no contact or connection with her family so I can't pass those photos on.

WW1 Photo Album Page 6

Continuing on with my WW1 Photo Album archive here is the 6th page in Doris' album. This was a very exciting page for me to find in this album! Yes the photos are dark and blurry but I am thrilled to see them because they are of my mom as a baby taken circa early 1917 with her older sister and her parents.

I do not have many photos of my Grandfather Fuller who died before I was born. What a thrill to see him, and to see my Grandmother as a young bride with her two little daughters.

 This is my Grandfather Fuller with my mother. She was born in September 1916 so this photo is almost certainly Spring or summer of 1917

 This is Grandpa Fuller and I think he is holding my mom but I can't be positive, even after I lightened the photo.

 This is my Grandmother Fuller and I am pretty sure the baby is my mother. It looks like Grandma might still be wearing a maternity smock so no doubt she had a little post-baby weight still to lose

 This is my mom sitting on the blanket with her older sister Lillian

 This is Uncle Ern with Auntie Cordie but I am not sure if the child is their daughter Doris or their daughter who died young

 I am sad at how dark this photo is because it is my mom in what looks like a christening gown. She is being held by an adult but even with making the photo lighter I cannot tell who is holding her. Her sister Lillian is in a baby walker.

Civil War Photo Album Rescued

 Another Civil War Photo Album has been rescued. That's right, I couldn't pass this one by. Almost every page in the album has writing which identifies who is in each photo.

There are 38 photos, either tintypes or CDVs (Cartes de Visite) and they are from the early 1860s to about 1890.

The album is in good shape but the pages are stained. The photographs are also in decent shape which is surprising considering the rough life I think this photo album had.

I will be documenting and archiving the photographs over the next few months but here are a few of the camera photos I took as my first step.

For those who haven't followed me before when I rescue and preserve these old albums, my first step is always to photograph each album page with the photos intact.

Only after that is completed do I attempt to carefully remove the photographs to see what is on the back and to scan them properly.

 This was one of the few photos (a tintype) that did not have writing on the album page itself. Instead it had a penciled name "Mandy (or Maudy) L. McFadden" on the front. On the back (verso) it had a sad note "Eleven mos old. Died September 15th 1878"

This is an example of the inside photo album pages and the gorgeous Civil War era photos inside! The surnames I have spotted already are Chidester, McKay, Deyo, Tharp, Strong, McFadden, Duncan, Bush, Perry, Pittenger. The locations of photographers are Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska.

I will continue to update with scans and details of individuals as I remove the photos from the album and as I spend some time researching the names. Those interested will be able to follow along by clicking on the tag "Chidester Photo Album Archive" in the right hand nav bar on this blog.

Featured Database: Fulton HIstory Full of Digitized Newspapers

This is a wonderful yet odd database of historic newspapers. To quote reason.com, "Amateur Beats Gov't at Digitizing Newspapers: Tom Tryniski’s Weird, Wonderful Website"

The site, FultonHistory, is amazing in its own right, chock full of wonderful New York newspapers. But on top of that reason.com reports that the Library of Congress' historic newspaper site, ChroniclingAmerica, has 5 million newspaper pages on its site. In January, visitors to Fultonhistory.com accessed just over 6 million pages while Chronicling America pulled fewer than 3 million views.

Mr. Tryniski's site is free and even though he has been approached by big companies with proposals for partnership, he refuses all in order to keep his work free for all.

This site is well worth checking out. Be sure you take a peek at his wonderful online collection of old postcards too.

Peter Robinson Settlers Survey Responses1823-1825 online

Survey & Responses of George Buck

Olive Tree Genealogy received the following email which is pretty interesting in the world of Canadian genealogy, specifically for early settlers in Ontario

 Some months ago I came across an incredibly valuable set of records in the Archives of Canada -- the responses of 180 heads of families among the settlers who emigrated to Upper Canada in 1823 and 1825. For some time I've thought about how best to bring these records forward -- and decided to invite volunteers to join in a collaborative transcription of these records .

Lorine's note - Olive Tree Genealogy published excerpts from transcripts of the medical journals kept by the surgeons on board the nine transports that brought Robinson's Irish Settlers to the Peterborough area in 1825 at Filling in the Gaps 
The survey responses of these settlers at Peannairi is a unique and exciting find.

Scanning Auntie's Life Story Pages with Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner

Using LiveScribe to Record Auntie's Memories

Here's another way I got to use my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner with Auntie. We usually chat and drink tea while I scan her box of photos.

This time I recorded some of her memories using my LiveScribe Pen and then I used my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner to scan the start of her life story she'd written out on loose pages.

You can see the pages she'd written sitting on the coffee table waiting to be scanned. The stitching software with Flip-Pal allowed me to easily scan the pages in sections then stitch them together seamlessly when I got home.

All I did was transfer the scanned sections to my computer and let the stitching software do the work putting them together in one seamless page after the other.

Journal for Auntie's Memorie

I also bought a small journal for Auntie to write down more life stories as she thinks of them. I'm looking forward to visiting again to see what else she's remembered. I'll take my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner with me of course to scan any memories she has done. 

Scanning Auntie's Photos with Flip-Pal

If you don't have one of these amazing scanners yet there's a good deal right now that might interest you.

Use Promotion Code: FPDC412A

Coupon is good from April 18 – 29

Offer: Save $20 when you purchase a Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner plus a Deluxe Flip-Pal mobile scanner Carry Case with Pocket! (Both items must be in your shopping cart!) Use this link Flip-Pal Mobile Scannerto make your purchase

Using Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner to Document Civil War Photo Albums

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner on my lap

One of the things I love about my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner is the ability to sit on the couch and scan photos.

It's not just for packing up and taking on the road on trips to Libraries, Archives or Museums (although it's terrific for that!)

After sitting most of the day at my main computer I want a change. So my evenings are perfect for relaxing in a comfy chair or on the couch with my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner on my lap. It's small. It's so light I'm hardly aware it's on my lap.

Scanning the back of the CDVs

Yesterday I spent some time documenting one of my Civil War Era Photo Albums that I buy and then put online on Lost Faces.

After I take camera shots of each page of the intact album, I carefully remove the photos and begin scanning them front and back.

With my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner I can watch TV at the same time, or sit on the couch, which is much more comfortable than my computer chair. Because I'm scanning CDVs and tintypes I can scan two at a time.

When I transfer the scans to my computer (easy using the Flip-Pal USB port converter) I simply save two copies of each scan, then I open each one in Picasa (or any photo editing software) and crop the scans so I have one photo per image.

It's fast, it's easy and it's fun! After I scan each photo I place them in archival sleeves and then they go into an archival binder. Then more fun because that's when I start doing research to find the individuals named in the album!

The album I documented and scanned and archived yesterday turns out to be for a Quaker family named Smith Battey and his wife Ruth Aldrich who lived in Rhode Island.

It didn't take long to realize what a gem this album is. It contains 31 CDVs and tintypes, including some of Smith Battey, his wife Ruth and three of their children (as adults): Thomas, Nancy and Phoebe.  But I'll talk more about the Battey Photo Album another day.

Digitalkoot: Digitizing Records Through Video Games

Yesterday a Twitter account called Digitalkoot started following me on Twitter. I check all profiles of anyone who follows me before I decide whether or not to block them, follow them back, or do nothing.

To my surprise, Digitalkoot's Twitter Profile indicated they are based in Helsinki Finland and their Twitter profile description read

Digitizing the Finnish cultural heritage through video games. Join the effort now at www.digitalkoot.fi!

Digitizing through Video Games? I was intrigued so off I went to the website. Wow. I am  impressed!

To quote a bit from the website

Digitalkoot is a joint project run by the National Library of Finland and Microtask. Our goal is to index the library's enormous archives so that they are searchable on the Internet. This will enable everyone to easily access our cultural heritage

You can help us by playing games. Playing games in Digitalkoot fixes mistakes in our index of old Finnish newspapers. This greatly increases the accuracy of text-based searches of the newspaper archives.

Basically you play one of two games -

* Mole Bridge where you are given words that the computer did not recognize. Getting a word correct adds parts to the bridge so that the moles can cross the river.

* Mole Hunt where you identify words the computer has misread

The National Library of Finland takes scanned newspaper images, converts them using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and then needs to clean up the text. Doing this manually would require a great deal of time, money and labour. So creating games and calling on a volunteer force to play the games (playing the games = correcting the OCR'd text) was their solution. A rather clever and creative solution in my opinion.

Being curious, I logged in (you can log in via email or using your Facebook account) and started playing Mole Bridge. I don't read Finnish but I had fun anyway trying to copy the letters I saw on the screen. Digitalkoot takes all user responses and compares them but it certainly helps if you know what Finnish words are. I didn't want to waste their time inputting incorrect data so I only played for a few mintues but it was actually lots of fun. I did okay with the easy words or the numbers. Some of my moles even made it across the river!

I think this is an amazingly innovative idea and I hope other digitization projects will take note and think about creating their own fun way to encourage volunteers to help get documents transcribed and saved in digital format.

You can read more about Digitalkoot at Digitalkoot: crowdsourcing Finnish Cultural Heritage on
the Microtask blog .

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

There's been a lot of discussion about clouds recently. Cloud computing that is. Are you in the cloud? I am and it's not only easy, it's fun and a great way to save and share important things.

Got a new find in your genealogy research and want to have multiple copies in safe places? Typed out great-grandma's recipe and want to share it with your cousins? Scanned 100 old family photos and want to make sure you have backups? Need to work on a project in collaboration with others? At your hotel for a genealogy conference and just remembered you left your notes at home? Don't worry, the cloud has your back!

What is it and Why Do I Want It?

There are many different types of cloud computing and several models of use, but I just want to describe the cloud services  I use and how and why I use them. You can Google "cloud computing" to read detailed definitions and descriptions.

I Love Dropbox!

My all-time favourite and most-used cloud service is Dropbox. With Dropbox I can store, sync, and, share files online for free. Not all cloud services will sync. If that's not important to you, don't worry about it. But I like to have at least one service that will automatically sync my uploaded files to all my devices.

Here's a brief look at how Dropbox works. Let's take an example of writing the story of Grandpa Harvey's life. I've saved my file to my computer hard drive but I want a backup and I want to be able to work on the story from my iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Laptop or other computers. All I need to do is "drop" my file into my Dropbox Account (2 GB of free storage space). Dropbox automatically syncs the file to all my devices that have the App installed. I can also access the files from any computer simply by going to the Dropbox website. I can also give other family members or contribuotrs access to the file and they can participate in the story writing, or simply enjoy reading it.

With Dropbox I can take a photo from my iPhone camera and immediately send it to Dropbox. When my husband is out photographing cemeteries for our Cemetery Walk series on Olive Tree Genealogy You-tube Channel, he can send each photo as he takes it to Dropbox. Dropbox notifies me on all my devices and my main computer immediately that a file has been added to my space. That gives me  immediate access to the tombsotne pictures hubby is taking.

Comparison of Free Cloud Services

Dropbox
2GB of free storage plus ability to earn extra free space up to 8GB. No size limit on files. Sync files automatically. Available as an App for iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices. Able to access files from any computer (Mac, Windows, Linux) or mobile device. Sign up for your free Dropbox Account of 2GB and get an extra 250MB free through this link.

Amazon Cloud Drive
5 GB free storage. Does not sync. Access files from any computer. Amazon promotes their cloud storage as a great way to save videos, music and photos. 5 GB is about 1,000 songs, 2,000 photos or 20 minutes of videos.  When you purchase songs or albums from the Amazon MP3 Store, you can  save your purchases to your Cloud Drive.

Memopal
3 GB free storage space. Get an extra free 500 MB with friend invites. Available as an App for iPhone. Use this link to immediately get 3.5 GB of free storage on signup    UPDATE MAY 5, 2011. I do not recommend this cloud storage service and will be writing a blog post to explain why



Box.net
5 GB free storage space. 25MB file size limit. Mobile App access. Website

Windows Skydrive
25GB free storage but file sizes limited to 50MB.  Create, view, edit, and share Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files online with SkyDrive even if you don't have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Note: I find Windows SkyDrive slow but I love the online Excel and Word programs! It allows me to use my familiar Excel and Word even on my MacBookAir.

Google Docs
1GB free. With Google Docs you create and share your work online.

Summary

Each of the free cloud storage services above with the exception of SkyDrive  allow users to pay for  expanded storage and more features.

Why do I use so many? I like to keep my cloud storage semi-organized by type of files or work. For example I use Amazon Cloud Drive for my scanned photos. I use DropBox for files I'm actively working on and files I need to easily and quickly share between computers.

I use Memopal for backup storage of my main website Olive Tree Genealogy. Box.net isn't one of my favourites but it's useful for backup of final versions of the Family History books I've published. It's downfall is the small file size it allows.

I'm not a huge fan of Google Docs so hardly ever use it but I include it here because it is good for teamwork participation. Windows SkyDrive is one I'm just starting to explore and I love being able to work in Excel and Word from my MacBook Air, but I find it the least user-friendly.

You can read what PC World had to say about Google Docs vs SkyDrive vs Amazon CloudDrive.  Spoiler: The author likes Box.net the best. Don't ask me how that got into the mix when the title is "Cloud fight! Amazon Cloud Drive vs. Google Docs vs. Microsoft Skydrive"

My Top Three

My personal choice for my top three cloud services are Dropbox, Memopal and Amazon CloudDrive. Try them. See which one works for you! Don't forget to use these links for Dropbox and Memopal to get your extra free storage space when you join! You won't be sorry you dipped your toe into the cloud.

Irish Times Archives 1859-2009 FREE until April 5

The Irish Times Digital Archives is FREE from March 27/09 to April 5/09. It covers the years 1859 to 2009

Enjoy this wonderful 150th Birthday Celebration!